Lovers' Talk
by Rebecca Hb
Summary: Aboard the Slive, on their way to Alera Imperia, Kitai and Tavi have a chance to talk about the future.


Disclaimer: The Codex Alera is copyright Jim Butcher. This story is licensed under the Creative Commons as derivative, noncommercial fiction.

**Lovers' Talk**

###

Tavi lay on his berth aboard the _Slive_, listening to the powerful beat of Kitai's heart. She looked asleep, her eyes closed and her breathing even, her body seeming almost boneless as it moved with the roll of the ship. His awareness of her felt she was awake, though.

He just let himself rest there, pressed between her body and the wall. Sometimes he drifted on the edge of sleep, but then Kitai would touch him with her hand, and he would open his eyes to see hers closed and a smile curving her mouth.

The thin light of day faded to twilight, and Kitai twisted around to lay facing him. Her eyes opened, a deep emerald green like no Marat had ever had before. Just as no Marat before her had taken an Aleran as a _chala_. He still wondered sometimes, if it was simply that Marat whelps never went much near Alerans or if it had something to do with what his mother had done to him.

"You're not worrying. That's good," she murmured.

Tavi's hand slid to rest on her hip. "Just wondering."

She blinked her eyes at him. "I think if we do it now, _chala_, your mother will hear much more than she'd care to."

Tavi felt his cheeks heat, and Kitai's amusement came deep and clear to him. Like the ringing of bells, almost, and yet nothing like it at all. He couldn't even compare it to the way Max's happiness felt through watercrafting. What he felt from Kitai was always... **more** than what he felt through watercrafting.

"I wasn't wondering about _that_," he said finally. His eyes slid closed, and he let himself just feel her, every part of her. "Wondering what to do after the Canim agree to a truce," he lied.

She let the lie pass without comment. "You will return to your Legion and take command, and Arnos will be left to the crows because he has no strength worth partaking of."

His thumb rubbed a small circle near her hip, bunching up the cloth of her tunic. "I don't plan to eat my enemies, Kitai."

"Foolish Aleran." She smiled lazily at him, her foot settling against his ankle. "None of your enemies have been worth it yet, unfortunately. But when you kill Nasaug, you should partake of **his** strength."

"Kitai, the point of this plan is to not kill Nasaug. It's to get him to leave Alera peacably."

"Without further damage to either of your peoples. You have mentioned this once or twice, Aleran." Her foot slid up his leg slowly, the motion pressing her knee against his thigh. "Battles do not go according to plans, and perhaps there will come a time when Nasaug falls because of you. Then-"

"I am **not** eating Nasaug."

"Just his heart. You should share the rest. It's only polite."

Tavi squinted at her, not sure if the mixture of amusement and mischief counteracted the deadly seriousness underlying it all. He thought Kitai might be teasing him, but he knew the Marat found it important to partake of the strength of their foes. But he wasn't a Marat; but he was Kitai's _chala_.

On the other hand, he really wasn't going to eat Nasaug whether or not Kitai honestly wanted him to.

"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it," he told her firmly.

She frowned.

"It's a metaphor," he said before she could ask, "and it means we'll deal with it when it actually needs to be dealt with."

"Why didn't you just say that, Aleran?" Kitai hooked her ankle behind his knee, her own knee digging into his hip.

"Habit." He leaned in and brushed his lips against the tip of her nose.

"You have many strange habits." She tilted her face to kiss him, and for a long while, they lost themselves in the soft meeting of their mouths. Each kiss felt perfect, years of practice and experimentation paying off with a casual and almost-unrealized familiarity with each other's bodies.

Kitai broke the kissing at last, turning her face away to stare the ceiling as if it held some deep secret. Only when Tavi stopped kissing her and settled back between her and the wall did she turn back towards him.

"What will you do when your grandfather comes to claim you?"

"I..." Tavi paused. He'd never thought about it. Knowing who he was had only been as important as the new doors it opened to him to solve the problem of the Canim plaguing the western lands of Alera. The rest of it- He hadn't thought of the rest of it yet. "I don't know. He needs an heir, Kitai."

"But you do not want to be his heir?"

"I don't know that either. Well. No. I don't want to be the Princeps or the First Lord. I've seen what it does to him. But if it's what's necessary..."

She reached down to clasp his hand, her fingers twining with his. "Come away with me to my father's ranges and my mother's sister's herds. Once this is settled with the Canim, you will have served your time in the Legion."

Tavi stared at her. Never, not once in all the time they'd been together, had Kitai offered to take him to her home. She had followed him or chased him or did as she wanted in his general vicinity. The idea of following her into Marat lands- He didn't know whether his heart soared with excitement or fear.

But he couldn't. "The Realm needs an heir," he said quietly, regret making his heart ache. To see Kitai in her lands among her own people, even if some of them did want to eat him... He'd never really get the chance to do that, would he? "Gaius Octavian must become the next First Lord of Alera."

She sighed and pressed closer to him, until he felt her heart beating against his chest and they almost breathed each other's breaths. "Oh, _chala_. What are you going to do to yourself?"

He wrapped his arms around her and held on without answering. They both knew what the answer was.

Whatever was necessary to preserve the realm.

**-End-**


End file.
